FEATURE RTD coffee
RTD on the rise GLOBAL COFFEE REPORT LOOKS AT THE BOOM OF THE READY-TODRINK COFFEE MARKET, LED BY A GROWING COFFEE CULTURE, HEALTH CONSCIOUS CONSUMERS, AND WIDE FUNCTIONALITY.
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arbonated soft drinks have experienced a huge decline in popularity over the last few years as consumers become warier of sugar and artificial flavouring. According to Euromonitor Senior Beverage Analyst Matthew Barry, this has created opportunities for other beverages to fill the void, with bottled water the beverage category that benefits most from the decline of carbonates. Barry tells Global Coffee Report that ready-to-drink (RTD) coffee is another increasingly
attractive option. “We’re seeing a lot of occasions opening up where, if someone isn’t drinking a carbonated soft drink, what are they drinking instead?” Barry asks. “If you were drinking a soft drink for the caffeine or energy, you need to substitute it with something else. RTD coffee is succeeding in places where it can poach those occasions successfully.” Declining popularity of carbonates is only one of many reasons that the RTD coffee market has seen a spike in popularity. Barry says the rise of café culture in many countries is the main driver of coffee in the RTD space, as it leads to a greater knowledge and appreciation of coffee and the ways it can be consumed. “As coffee shop culture expands worldwide, RTD coffee follows in its wake, particularly as cold coffee becomes popular,” he says. “There are also plenty of places with strong café cultures where RTD coffee isn’t taking
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off as well, like Italy. That’s probably because these countries don’t particularly value cold coffee. Places that do praise cold coffee, the United Kingdom for example, have a more correspondingly active RTD market.”
CALIFIA CALLING One of the RTD coffee brands to quickly gain momentum across the world is the USbased Califia Farms. The plant-based beverage company received US$225 million in a financing round in January 2020 to build on the success of its oat platform and launch other product lines. Califia Farms produces plant-based milks in a variety of formats for the coffee industry, including barista milks and creamers. CEO and Founder Greg Steltenpohl tells GCR the company’s interest in RTD coffee came from
